The Fall of Hades (10 page)

19: THE WELL OF FLAME

The walls and high ceiling here were webbed with thin gas pipes, which at irregular intervals gave vent to jetting blue flame. Glass globes had been fitted over the nozzles, to diffuse the flame glow as a subaqueous bluish light. The air was filled with a muted hissing, as though all those overlapping pipes might be masses of snakes slithering across the walls.

Ahead of the party, large crates were heaped into small mountains, all of them apparently long emptied of their contents. Some were metal, but most were made from ancient wood, bleached and rotting, constructed at a time when Hades in its possible infinity had still contained innumerable vast jungles and forests. There were signs that people had used some of these crates for habitation, though apparently not for some time.

Front and center, however, what commanded the emerging party’s attention were three great hatches set into the floor. The hatches to left and right were closed and apparently sealed, though the hatch in the center was fully open on its massive hinges. The air rippled with heat above it, and a louder and more centralized sound like roaring air issued from it, drowning out the surrounding hissing as they started forward.

Vee flinched and looked back sharply when she heard the elevator resume movement behind her, as up on floor 7 Jim shifted one of his levers again. The platform sank into its cavernous shaft out of sight.

Looking forward again, Vee took note of the idle cranes, chains and pulleys poised high over the trio of hatches, and there were also several large, ribbed flexible tubes like monstrous segmented worms that she figured could be directed this way or that in order to funnel matter down into the three openings in the floor. Were they incinerators, then, for disposal?

Disposal of what? In a factory complex designed to churn out Demons, she wasn’t sure she wanted to know.

“I’ve never seen that cover open before,” Fred said, frowning as they drew closer to the hatches. To continue on their way, they had to pass between them.

“I haven’t come down here often,
” Roper said, sounding apprehensive, “but I’ve never seen it open, either.”

Earl and Tim had quickly moved ahead of the others, circling around to the far side of the opening, like the crater of a miniature volcano.

Johnny hung back with his leashed Demons, while Fred, Roper and Vee approached the pit on the near side. The Celestials lingered a little behind Fred, turning their heads slowly this way and that to remain attentive to their surroundings.

“It’s like looking up the ass of a rocket ship,” Roper remarked, and indeed it was. Vee didn’t lean too far over the rim—none of them did, for fear of that rippling heat—but it was plain that fire roared down in the circular shaft, its radiance as intense as the heat.

“Sir!” Earl called from the other side. “You’d better have a look at this.”

Roper made his way to join Earl and Tim, with Fred and Vee following. The Celestials remained on the opposite side, still vigilant.

Earl bent down and rose with what looked like a white bed sheet in his hand. It was a robe such as many of the Angels wore, heavily stained with dried, brown blood.

Roper took the robe from him, eying it grimly.

“What is that there?” Fred asked. He stepped closer to the raised collar that was the rim of the pit, and knelt down to retrieve an object from the floor. He held it out in his palm for Roper to examine.

The security commander came beside him, and took the object from his hand. It was a small gold crucifix on a thin gold chain. As Roper studied it, the chain slithered through his fingers and the necklace dropped between his feet. “Oops.” Fred looked down to where the crucifix had fallen, and that was when Roper threw the bloody robe over Fred’s head and upper body. With the man thus blinded and disoriented, Roper then shoved him mightily with both hands on his chest.

Vee’s breath caught in her throat as she saw Fred topple backwards over the rim of the pit, and plummet screaming into it.

“Yee-ha!” Earl roared, crouching down a little to brace himself as he fired a grenade from the launcher under the barrel of his M16.

The Celestials were just bringing their own weapons to bear, ready to strafe Roper, when the grenade exploded against one of them directly. The faintly luminous entity was decimated, and its partner was near enough to be thrown down, too. Before the being could regain its feet, Tim and Johnny hammered it with gunfire, Tim with a long automatic burst from his assault rifle and Johnny with a flurry of shots from a handgun. The Celestial let out a horrible cry, the only sound Vee had heard from any of them, something like the high-pitched scream of a hawk, before its much-torn body went still beside the pulped mass that had been its comrade.

Vee had crouched low, too, and brought her own gun up for action, though she flicked its blunt barrel from Earl and Tim to Johnny in confusion, not sure what might happen next, barely sure of what had happened already. The thunderclap of the grenade’s detonation made it feel like her ears had been boxed.

“Quick, Tim, the hatch!” Roper shouted. As Tim and Earl darted toward the hinged portion of the open cover, Roper swung toward Vee and held up both his hands. “Whoa, Rebecca, be cool, now…nobody’s going to hurt you. This was done for your benefit, believe me.”

“My benefit?” she said, pointing Jay at him.

“Easy now.” Roper reached down, picked up the necklace he had purposely dropped, and looped it around his own neck with a smile. “I’m glad some Damned didn’t come along and find this—I would have missed it.”

“You planted it here. And the robe. So whose blood?”

“A little visit to the slaughterhouse, for that.”

Vee had missed what Tim—a mechanic, she recalled—had done, but the hatch started into motion, rising and then descending slowly over the circular pit.

“Wait, the Celestials. Them, too,” Roper said. “They can’t regenerate, but let’s clean up the evidence anyway.”

Earl hurried to the one he had blown apart, and laughed, “I’m not gonna scoop up every damn bit of him, so this’ll have to do.” He dragged the ragged remains of the being by one arm, the other missing, as was everything below its ribs. He then slung the slack, tattered mannikin over the rim. Tim paused the cover from falling while Earl retrieved the other body, which was more intact but left a wide, long swath of blood across the floor as he dragged it to the incinerator—or cremator, in this case. The second Celestial was heaved over the side, and then Tim restarted the hatch’s descent. It thudded into place, and there was the clunk of a lock clamping down.

“Do you know why we did this, Rebecca?” Roper asked her. “Why it was done for you—and your father?”

“I think I do,” she said, lowering her bone gun gradually but keeping both fists on it. “In
Johnston’s office I saw a computer identical to the one outside the cell I was held in. I could tell my jailers used to have two computers, but somebody had taken one. And I told you I found a few Demon skeletons. One of them had its head split open—I’m guessing by a Celestial’s sword.”

“Bright girl, bright girl.” Roper smiled. “So you were already getting the picture. I don’t know if Fred meant to do the rest of us any harm today, to prevent your Dad from being freed—do him harm, too, or maybe move him to a new location. Maybe he only wanted to keep an eye on the proceedings, but I didn’t want to take any chances.”

“Fred and his Celestials put me and my father there in the first place, didn’t they? Because my father and Johnston were at odds over how L.A.

should be run.”

“That early on, Johnston wasn’t too radical,” Roper said, “but I think your dad saw it coming, and he wanted to run L.A. his way, sure. I don’t think Johnston went so far as to partner up with the Demons that held you.

I do think, though, that he set you up somehow. Then later, either right away or after some time had passed, to insure that your dad wouldn’t be freed, he had Fred go looking for where the Demons had taken him, and Fred and his goons killed them.”

“Aside from my father the other cells are empty, but I thought you said there was a team of soldiers with us.”

“Maybe the Demons took them to another facility, or
Johnston paid them off in advance and they relocated to another level.” Roper gestured to the central hatch. “Or maybe they ended up in the furnace.”

“Is Fred dead, then?”

“‘Freddie’s dead,’” Earl began to sing inside his helmet, nudging Tim,

“‘that’s what I said!’”

“We can’t be killed, you know that. But with him trapped down there, his soul can’t regenerate. That’s why we have to keep a lid on it, though—if so much as an ash floated out of there, he could regrow. That’s why I had to make sure not to leave a drop of his blood up here, either.”

“And what are you going to do now, go back to
L.A. and tell Johnston what you did?”

“Hell no. For now, the story will be that we got ambushed by Demons, who dragged Fred off we don’t know where. But before we go back to
L.A., we’re going to continue on and free your dad. He can decide what he wants to do—try to overthrow Johnston altogether, or just talk some sense into him and rein him in. But either way, that crazy man has got to be stopped and I know your dad will feel the same. With Fred out of the way it will be easier; I’ll assume command of his Celestial troops myself.”

“So you knew it was
Johnston behind this all along?”

“Well, some of us suspected it a long time, but we couldn’t prove it and we couldn’t find you two. But when you came and found us, and told us where to find your dad, well…I knew it was time to act at last. So let’s do this, lady. Let’s go free your dad, and make
L.A. what he intended it to be, and you can resume your role right there by his side.”

Tim spoke up, “Sorry we didn’t let you know what we were up to, Rebecca, but we didn’t want to make you nervous or something, where you’re still trying to remember your past and all.”

“Thanks for your consideration, Tim. Not knowing your plan sure made it easier seeing you guys murder Fred and those Celestials.”

Roper said, “We did
not
murder Fred…he’s just, sort of a prisoner right now. Like he did to
you
, remember? He can always be released in the future. Lady, come on, we’re on the same side here, don’t forget.”

“Rebecca,” Tim said, stepping toward her, his eyes looking earnest in the goggles of his helmet, “I want you and me to start over again. If you’ll come back to me, I swear I’ll give up both Danielle and Miranda and make myself clean again, like Charles.”

“Give up your harem? Wow. Hey, and then when my daddy is king of L.A., and I’m his princess, you can be the prince, huh?”

“Geez, Rebecca, how can you say that? I never stopped loving you, and once upon a time you loved me, too. If you could before, you can again, if you’ll only give it a chance.”

“Tim, you’re an absolute stranger to me. I’m a stranger to myself.”

“You’re a stranger to me, too, these days,” Roper said, “but I know you need more time. Let’s continue this conversation later, people; I want to get to Pastor Phelps as soon as we can. Right?” Replacing his own helmet, he started around the curve of the closed pit toward Vee, and gestured for Earl and Tim to come along, too.

Vee glanced over at Johnny, beside the Demons. He had returned his pistol to its holster. Good. She turned back to Roper, quickly lifted Jay to eye level so she could sight along the shallow channel grooved into his upper surface, and started spraying bone bullets.

She had learned from her first encounter with Roper and his men to take into account the ballistic vests they wore, so she went for Roper’s groin and upper legs. His thighs riddled, blood spurting heavily from a torn femoral artery, Roper dropped backwards, clearing the way for her to shoot Tim and Earl next. She fired short bursts toward their legs, then as they fell switched to their heads, remembering how the sutured plates in Earl’s helmet had come open when she’d killed him the first time. As the men went down, however, it appeared that both their helmets remained intact.

Vee spun and opened up on Johnny just as he had fumbled his pistol out of its holster again. The Demons flinched away from him, but then seemed to understand that Vee did not intend to shoot them, too. With Johnny howling, thrashing on the floor, Vee returned her attention to the other three men, striding quickly toward where they lay screaming and squirming in their own leaking blood.

Roper tried to sit up and bring his assault rifle into play, but Vee kicked it aside, extended Jay and shot him through his neck where it was exposed beneath the edge of his helmet. She then moved on to Earl, and kicked him under the chin to dislodge his helmet. He looked up at her with one wide eye, the other already a raw empty socket from a bullet that had shattered a goggle lens. She discharged Jay into his upturned face, so that when he flopped onto his back his countenance looked more like a mass of pastrami.

Tim had pulled off his own helmet, maybe to let her see his once familiar face, and tears of pain streamed from his eyes. “No, Rebecca, please, don’t do this! I love—”

“Nothing personal, Tim,” she assured him, as she sent a dozen rounds into his face. He went limp, too. It would take a while for him and the others to regenerate, by which time she hoped to be far from here.